honour."---"How? tell me how? I would do any thing," replied Aubrey.
---"I need but little---my life ebbs apace---I cannot explain the
whole---but if you would conceal all you know of me, my honour were
free from stain in the world's mouth---and if my death were unknown
for some time in England---I---I---but life."---" It shall not be
known."---"Swear !" cried the dying man, raising himself with exultant
violence, " Swear by all your soul reveres, by all your nature fears,
swear that, for a year and a day you will not impart your knowledge of
my crimes or death to any living being in any way, whatever may
happen, or whatever you may see. "---His eyes seemed bursting from
their sockets: " I swear !" said Aubrey; he sunk laughing upon his
pillow, and breathed no more.

Aubrey retired to rest, but did not sleep; the many circumstances
attending his acquaintance with this man rose upon his mind, and he
knew not why; when he remembered his oath a cold shivering came over
him, as if from the presentiment of something horrible awaiting him.
Rising early in the morning, he was about to enter the hovel in which
he had left the corpse, when a robber met him, and informed him that
it was no longer there, having been conveyed by himself and comrades,
upon his retiring, to the pinnacle of a neighbouring mount, according
to a promise they had given his lordship, that it should be exposed to
the first cold ray of the moon that rose after his death. Aubrey
astonished, and taking several of the men, determined to go and bury
it upon the spot where it lay. But, when he had mounted to the summit
he found no trace of either the corpse or the clothes, though the
robbers swore they pointed out the identical rock: on which they had
laid the body. For a time his mind was bewildered in conjectures, but
he at last returned, convinced that they had buried the corpse for the
sake of the clothes.